Lecture 12 – Merleau-Ponty, Space and the Sexual Body

This lecture will begin with a discussion of Merleau-Ponty’s account of space. It is important to grasp what Merleau-Ponty means by space, the body is not a neutral and disinterested ‘thing’ but something projecting itself into space, into situations. Once we grasp what Merleau-Ponty means by space, then we can gain a sense of how all situations operate. For example, we will be able to understand Merleau-Ponty’s distinction between objective space and corporeal space. This distinction is brought into relief by a particular case study Merleau-Ponty explores i.e. Schneider. Schneider’s illness provides a very instructive account as to how humans relate to embodied space. In the second part of the lecture, I will explain how Merleau-Ponty deploys the Schneider case to make explicit how an individual with brain injury came to have a restrictive subject-object relation to the world. This will in turn enable me, in the final section, to explain what Merleau-Ponty has to say about sexuality in general, erotic perception, and their significance for our understanding of embodiment. 

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